Northside. July 4th. 1946?

When my grandmother passed a couple of years ago, I discovered hundreds and hundreds of negatives I had never seen before.

There were quite a few of family members I knew - aunts and uncles as infants, great-aunts and uncles as young adults, but, of course, one or two that I couldn't quite identify at all.

This was one of them.

Judging from the angle I'm thinking this was taken from the west side of Hamilton Avenue near the intersection of Chase Ave., and, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd have to say this was taken at the legendary Northside Fourth of July parade.

The question of course - what year?

Well, there's a license plate on a car in the foreground and if you REALLY blow up the original to outrageous sizes, it just MIGHT say "1946".

Certainly a great deal has changed over the years since this photograph was snapped. It looks as if there was a small Kroger at the corner of Chase and Hamilton. Of course the supermarket had not been invented in 1946 and the Kroger stores most likely were pretty small back then - and there were apartments ABOVE the Kroger.

I wonder who the man and woman in uniform were.

I wonder who the kids in the funny hats were.

And ... do the math ... these kids look to be around 14 in this picture. That would make them something on the order of 75 now.

I wonder how many of them are still with us.

I wonder if any of them still come out to watch that parade ...